NASA Launches Spacecraft to Mercury
NASA launched the spacecraft Messenger, Tuesday, August 3, 2004, on a long quest to reveal the secrets of mysterious, super hot Mercury, the sun’s nearest planet. The journey will take more than six years, covering nearly 5 billion miles on a roundabout ramble through the inner solar system. The probe should reach Mercury by March 2011, and then spend a year gathering data. The Messenger mission is part of NASA’s bargain-focused Discovery program devised by Johns Hopkins University.